Technology Review visits Ed Boyden, an assistant professor at the Media Lab and leader of the Synthetic Neurobiology Group at MIT, in his lab, where he demonstrates a device to turn neurons on and off and discusses how photosensitive proteins can be used to study and manipulate the workings on the brain.

At the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, MD, researchers have developed one of the most powerful methods yet for redesigning life. By editing genomes on the computer, synthesizing them in the lab, and transplanting the genomes into cells, Venter Institute researchers can speed up the process of genetic engineering. Ultimately, they want to design and create microbes that efficiently produce clean fuels, vaccines, and other products.

An optic fiber emitting infrared light from a diode laser has been placed just one millimeter away from the developing heart of a two-day old quail embryo. As the laser pulse changes its speed, the heart alters its beat to match. This system is the first time that the whole heart of a living animal has been paced with light--a method that could yield insight into the development of heart defects as well as, much further down the road, provide a new approach for building